The present invention relates to a clothes-hanger and more particularly to a clothes-hanger provided with a hook for suspending the hanger on a clothes rail or the like. The hook comprises a member secured to the body of the hanger having a recess to receive the clothes rail and an opening leading to the recess so that the said member can be readily passed over a rail, the rail being received in the recess.
In conventional clothes-hangers a hook is provided which consists of an ordinary single hook screwed into the body of the hanger, if the hanger is made of wood, or attached to the body in some other convenient way, or made integrally with the hanger if the hanger is formed of wire or is integrally moulded from a plastics material. Such clothes-hangers may be utilised with clothes rails of many different shapes, but one disadvantage experienced with such hangers is that when a plurality of garments mounted on individual hangers are packed closely on a rail it is easy, when removing or hanging up another garment, accidentally to release an adjacent hanger from the rail so that it falls to the ground. Of course, this is a great inconvenience not only in the home, but also in cloakrooms and cupboards, and in premises which are open to the public such as restaurants, waiting rooms, offices, and the like. However, the disadvantage is especially inconvenient in shops where clothing is sold, particularly if the clothing if of a kind which is easily spoiled by being dropped on the floor, for example, clothing that is light in colour so that it becomes visibly dirty when the clothing is dropped on the floor.
This particular problem experienced with conventional clothes-hangers, namely the problem that the clothes-hangers are easily accidentally dislodged from the clothes rail so that they fall onto the floor, has been known for a long time and various proposals have been made which seek to solve this problem. Almost without exception these proposals involve the use of a especially designed clothes rail, the hook or hanging means provided on the clothes-hanger being specifically designed to cooperate with the special clothes rail. One example of a prior proposed clothes hanger of this type is a hanger in which the conventional hook is replaced by a hanging element comprising a shaft projecting vertically upwardly from the body of the hanger and terminating in a head. The clothes rail is in the form of a tube, and the lower side of the tube is provided with a plurality of longitudinally extending slots, each dimensioned to accommodate one of the shafts. A number of notches are provided which are connected to the slots, the notches being dimensioned so that the head on a shaft can be inserted into the tube through one of the notches, the head then engaging the sides of the slot so that the shaft is supported by the inside of the tube, the body of the hanger thus being suspended below the clothes rail. In commercially available embodiments of this proposal a hanger can only be removed from the clothes rail when its head is immediately opposite a notch and in order to remove a particular hanger from the clothes rail it may be necessary to push one or more other hangers past the notch, and thus one or more of the hangers may catch in the notch.
A hook arrangement which cannot be unintentionally dislodged from an ordinary rail has been proposed previously in connection with a hanger for suspending boots. This prior proposed hook arrangement comprises a hook member defining an eye, and a tongue which extends upwardly from the end of the eye adjacent the body of the boot hanger and which terminates a predetermined distance from the free end of the member forming the eye of the hook. This predetermined distance is less than the diameter of the clothes rail on which the hook is to be mounted, and the tongue is rigid in the plane of the eye, but is flexible in a direction perpendicular to this plane. The tongue thus prevents the hook from being unintentionally dislodged from the rail. The hanger is removed or hung up by withdrawing or inserting the hook member over the rail at an angle to the vertical plane so that the tongue can be pressed out of the way. It has been found that this particular design is suitable for use with hangers that are intended to support boots, since these hangers are not normally removed from the clothes rail once they have been hung up. This is because a conventional hanger for boots is provided with a clamp, which may resemble a large clothes-peg, which grips the upper edges of the legs of the boots to be supported. It has been found that this particular hook design is not, however, suitable for use with clothes-hangers, since the hanger must be inclined for removal and hanging up.